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Infotech 2009, a mere trade fair

25 September 2009 26 Comments

Read in today’s edition of L’express :

Infotech 2009 will be held on 18-22nd October 2009 Thursday 19 to Sunday 22 November 2009.

Every year, Mauritians have been disappointed by The Tech Fair, which finally turns out to be very dull! Nothing interesting nor innovative despite the tons of adverts and promises on the behalf of the organisers and the participants.

And this year, NCB announced their innovative idea :

The visitors will be able to buy items in the fair.
pff! What an idea! *cough* *cough*

Previous years

For me, this expo has merely been a trade fair since ever.

fairs

The ISPs will be boasting about their 1Mbps internet connection while other countries are getting much more, at a lower price. And for sure, they will be exposing their 3G modems which cost a lot without any better connectivity. Of course, the rabbit modem will have to be there!

IT resellers will be displaying their laptops at excessive prices again. The biggest of them will be putting crazy 50% sales, which is coincidentally valid for the whole year.

Since the few years, Mauritians now know exactly which stands will be worth a visit… Apple and Emtel (i.e. their models!)

Personally, I am not excited about this event anymore! The first Infotech was nice and much better than all the expos which followed.

I remember going to the Infotech 2005 with uni friends, 2006 with my Nomad Tshirt, also in 2007 but not that of 2008.

Infotech, what should be there?

I am sure, all of us have their own ideas and of course, its no use criticizing without giving some good examples. Examples that would give another proportion to this event.

Unique Events.

Google Day Mauritius should be considered as an example. Do you imagine, the kick off of Google Activities in the African Continent started with a 2 day conference in Mauritius?

I would definitely call this great event as The Event of The Year 2009, and the credits go to the Board Of Investment. Events like this would be the most welcomed, especially for a tech expo in the cyber island.

Some months back, there was a yahoo engineer and some other guys in Mauritius. This should interest web developers.

Promote the web.

This event would be The Ideal Opportunity to make Mauritians discover the web. Internet is not only about doing stupid quizzes on facebook!

Blogging should have been introduced at a national level. There can’t be a better opportunity to promote this activity in the island.

Our bloggers community is growing, and we are bringing a change to the traditional Mauritian web.

Bring back the Web d’Or!

Finally, there’s something which really need to be re-introduced.

Webs d'or

Organized by Mauritius Telecom in the years 2000, the Web D’Or was The web competition for the best web sites of the island. Unfortunately, it was never renewed after the second edition.

These are only a few interesting ideas.

Come on, we are talking about a tech expo, not a trade fair where people would be selling pickles or artisanal products.

Any suggestions?

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  • Dvil

    kan suposer infotech la?

  • http://www.yashvinawootar.com Yashvin

    Ok, mo croire li pane ekrire assez gros lo 2eme la ligne :P

    MONE MET LI GROS ASTER :p
    Checker lol!

  • Dvil

    lol man mo mari tired akoz sa mo pane trouV… hmmm mauvais date sa .. bien mauvais

  • http://neodil.blogspot.com Dilraj

    Hello everybody,

    Thanks Yashvin for letting me know of this event. Of course, we’ll try to attend, despite all the good and more bad things that we can say of this event.

    Why is it no more THE event that we all await? I should say there is a lack of vision of leadership among the organisers. What do they want to portrait with such an event? Just some cute models on the stands of Orange and Emtel (a pretty cool competition?)? As far as I’m concerned, I go there to see those models first. Then I look for beautiful people. Then for hostesses who know their products.

    And indeed, Mauritius Telecom should bring back the Web d’Or. That we call EVENT! And why not The Webby Awards, Mauritian version?

    Cheers,
    Dilraj

  • http://asheshr.wordpress.com Ashesh

    yeah, G-Mauritius 2 and Web D’or FTW!

  • http://sozzz.net Sun

    It has become almost like dirty politics where all the parties brag and make promises and in the end.. disappoint the mango people.

    What they should do is expose their latest products, let the people try them. And employ worthy people to work in the stands. Some are just present their because their competitor in there. *nek pu montrer figir*

    There’s not much i can see improving in mauritius(without the citizens spending a lot of money) EXCEPT the possiblity of internet speed rise.

    I hope that this important aspect of our DAILY life isnt ignored by the Major ISPs

    Finally.. i’d love to see google there! :P

  • Avishna

    Indeed bizin get ready to participate….fioufsssssssss

  • http://blog.fadil.fr Fadil

    Rumour has it that a certain company will be selling DVDs at Rs. 5 each.

    Why should you go to Infotech?

    - Gain new contacts (do attend the pathetic conference – MS+Gov are lovers!)
    - Buy cheap DVDs
    - Try Max4G, Hero and Magic @ Emtel & Maurisystems stands (Mauritians need to understand that the iPhone is CRAP and that Orange sucks when compared to Emtel.)
    - Loads of hot chicks who have no interest in nerds (the latter get to watch them though LOL – yeah, pervy nerds do exist.)
    - Raffles
    - Quizzes and pathetic prizes.

    Why should you boycott Infotech?

    - You do not form part of the targeted audience (nerds (and even geeks) should stay away from crappy fairs.)
    - Your blood pressure will be high for you would want to punch idiot Ministers and ISP folks who screwed your user experience for a particular service.
    - DCL Nude dudes may make you play the Scrubs Guy Love song inside your mind.
    - It’s full of a-holes who want to screw you over for money.
    - You need to do an illegal workaround to obtain free wifi. Nobody wants to end up arrested.
    - At the conference, you won’t have any table @ all even if the event is supposed to be covered by bloggers.
    - Bloggers are NOT acknowledged as a powerful agent of change.
    - The food is NOT free.
    - The after parties always suck!
    - The parking area is unsafe.
    - Open Source advocates are ignored.
    - Representatives from Rodrigues always complain to guests afterwards because they learned of nothing new.
    - etc…

  • http://www.facebook.com/izzyladoo/ Neel

    I think the best stands will be:

    1. Orange (Innovative products and the new iPhone 3Gs)
    2. Apple (Apple products)
    3. Cash N Carry (Variety of products at more competitive prices)
    4. Emtel (As you mentioned; the models..:P)
    5. DCL (Games)
    6. Paoma (Yes, a new name. Paoma is the newborn of another Apple reseller in MRU. It is actually giving away Apple products at incredible prices with gifts, etc.)

    On the other hand, I hope they introduce a new stand for Google.

    I also think this is a golden opportunity for you bloggers to voice out your ideas.

    However, I’ll be there only for Apple products and the iPhone 3Gs.

  • http://www.yashvinawootar.com Yashvin

    @Fadil : LOL!

  • http://www.facebook.com/izzyladoo/ Neel

    @ Fadil:

    Talking about perv nerds.. In the recent Orange Expo I saw one guy filming a model’s legs and A**. And the guy was in his 50′s, along with DAUGHTER! Shocking! LOL

    I know I’m out of subject mais c juste a paranthese! ;)

  • sebo964

    very glad to hear that infotech is comming, was just looking for a new rig. BTW its has been a long time since infotech was about learning new stuff, ils more about finding out which of the cool stuff we see on the internet got to mauritius.
    looking forward to see new AMD athlon II and Phenom II, hope their price will not be too high, hope to see new AM3 board, hope to see new Core i5 (i knw its pretty new but still), some GPUs like some GT series of Nvidia hope the 9000 series dropped in price,

    hope to see some 12inch netbooks (MSI u210) and also some of those new Nvidia Ion chips.

    hoping that emtel would extend its wimax network to individuals.
    This year more than before i hope to see a lot of stuff.

  • http://www.nussaibah.com Nussaibah

    I keep wondering why you keep doing adverts for them :P I’ll be waiting for the review :P

  • http://www.aslblog.co.cc ASL

    Hope this infotech will be better…

  • Mike

    Infotech should be the IT/Telecoms “vitrine”. As a member of the general public and apart from the press it is the only means I have to gain information on what is available or will be available in the country. In particular as to what ISPs can or will offer for internet connectivity. After enjoying high-speed reliable services in Europe I am shopping around for a good ISP. At such fairs I get suspicious if the stands are cluttered with pretty hostesses, it just means to me that the vendor probably does not have anything worthwhile. It is far more interesting to speak to a tech., engineer or sales person who really can introduce products. Hopefully, the various companies will take the task more seriously and give more information/demos to business and public.

  • http://blog.fadil.fr Fadil

    @Neel Blasphemy! The iPhone is a piece of junk.

  • Dvil

    zot rane zot compte ki li pou en pleine semaine excepT dimanche?

  • http://www.warezmauritius.blogspot.com warezmauritius

    No new thing are to be shown at the INFOTECH…..

    always the same thing………
    1)Emtel about its wireless internet and mobile
    2)Orange about its internet, Myt and bla,bla,bla……..
    3)Always the same technology

    There must be an overclockers stand at the infotech and company must promote SLI and Crossfire technology…..

  • http://www.warezmauritius.blogspot.com warezmauritius

    Does anyone if there is an official Nvidia distributor in Mauritius????

  • Dvil

    i dont knw if it is actually the official nvidia distributor but since 2001 i buy pc things at pascal computers and they always have nvidia

  • aslam

    ene zafer sire, pu ena ene ban 35 lor stand emtel. :)

  • JT

    Apart from technology equipment put an information area about careers in ICT in mauritius…and possible recruitment advices Traning Instutions. Im sure people will agree withme that we are not well informed about the jobs in this sector.

    Personnally i would attend that primarily, to possibly clear the questions ive been asking myself and secondly for the BOOTH GIRLS talking about technology!

  • http://www.tushal.net Tushal

    BazarTech 2009 BTW!!

  • nasrullah

    Infotech \\\\who is the winner??????

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